HBO making a musical comedy series

The golden age of the movie musical is long over, but it might soon be difficult to turn on the TV without seeing people bursting into song. Between NBC casting Christopher Walken in Peter Pan Live!, ABC ordering a fairy-tale-themed musical show, and Fox developing an all-singing, all-dancing twist on the family sitcom, musicals may soon be everywhere. No doubt hoping to get ahead of the curve, HBO has ordered Sing With Me, a half-hour musical comedy destined to be the stylish, critically acclaimed musical show to which all the others get unfavorably compared.

Sing With Me is being developed by Bruce Eric Kaplan, an HBO veteran thanks to his work on Six Feet Under and Girls, whose last project for the network—starring Sarah Silverman and Topher Grace as siblings—never made it past the pilot stage. Sing With Me will revolve around three generations of women living in Los Angeles who, it can be assumed, are musically oriented. It’s not yet known what form the music in the show will take, such as whether it will feature covers or original songs, whether the characters will sing because they’re in the business or because they have the music in their hearts and need to get it out, etc. But if it ends up on HBO, it is known that the show will be regarded as groundbreaking and change the way we look at this kind of program.